Regarding the inability of beginning elementary school teachers to immediately become independent\
teachers at school, one survey shows that the current teacher training programs in the four-year training at\
universities fail to equip undergraduates who aspire to become teachers with the minimum qualifications and\
abilities, such as classroom management, counseling and guidance, and assessment (2011). The Tokyo\
metropolitan government designed the elementary school teacher-training curriculum in 2010, requiring\
prospective teachers to acquire the knowledge and ability to implement classroom discipline and to provide\
appropriate instruction in teaching subjects before graduation. Based on this policy, each university with\
teacher training programs aims to improve its curriculum and to provide students with more hands-on\
opportunities including volunteer experience as well as practice teaching.\
In fact, beginning teachers at schools do have knowledge of curriculum planning and the spirit and methods\
for guiding children. In reality, however, they cannot appropriately implement this knowledge when as the\
main teacher they face children. This reality shows that practice teaching and volunteer experience are\
insufficient to make the undergraduates become proactive as the leader of a class. Therefore, investigative\
learning and real-experience as the main teacher are crucial during the training period.\
The new internship curriculum in this study seeks to expand the undergraduates’ activities to extracurricular\
activity time and challenge the limits of practice teaching and volunteer experience.